Every WordPress security plugin says it has a firewall. The word hides enormous differences: some products inspect every request against rules you can extend, others mostly harden settings and lock out repeated login failures, and some reserve the actual WAF for a paid cloud service. If you choose by the word on the box, you find out what you actually bought during your first attack.
This comparison puts six well-known plugins side by side on ten concrete firewall capabilities: WordSec, Wordfence, Sucuri, Solid Security, All-In-One Security (AIOS), and MalCare. We build WordSec, so the honesty rules are strict: every competitor classification comes from that vendor's official documentation as of July 2026, and wherever a capability could not be confirmed, we recorded it as not offered rather than assuming. The same dataset powers our live comparison page.
What actually makes a WordPress firewall
Ten capabilities separate a real web application firewall from a hardening checklist. These are the rows in our table:
- A rule-based WAF that inspects every incoming request for malicious payloads before they reach your code.
- Custom rules, because your site has attack patterns generic rules cannot know. Multi-condition support matters here.
- VPN, proxy, Tor, and blacklist IP blocking to strip the anonymity layer attackers hide behind.
- Bad bot and scraper blocking, including AI scrapers and vulnerability scanners.
- A blackhole trap that bans crawlers who ignore your robots rules, catching malicious scanners by their own behavior.
- REST API access control by role and namespace, since the REST API is a standing target for enumeration and abuse.
- Security headers and iFrame protection against clickjacking and content injection.
- Hardening switches for the classic weak points: XML-RPC, user enumeration, directory listing, the file editor, forced HTTPS.
- Rate limiting to throttle floods that individual rules cannot catch.
- Geoblocking by country and continent, the cheapest way to cut untargeted attack volume.
The comparison table
The value shown is the tier where the capability first becomes available, per official vendor documentation, July 2026.
| Capability | WordSec | Wordfence | Sucuri | Solid Security | AIOS | MalCare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web application firewall | Free | Free | Paid | Free | Free | Free |
| Custom firewall rules | Free | Free | Paid | Free | Free | No |
| VPN / proxy / Tor / blacklist blocking | Premium | No | Paid | No | No | No |
| Bad bot and scraper blocking | Free | Free | Paid | Free | Free | Paid |
| Blackhole trap | Free | No | No | No | No | No |
| Role-based REST API control | Free | No | No | Free | Free | No |
| Security headers and iFrame shield | Free | Free | Paid | Free | Free | No |
| Hardening switches | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Paid |
| Rate limiting | Free | Free | Paid | Free | Free | Free |
| Country and continent geoblocking | Free | Paid | Paid | Paid | Paid | Paid |
Two rows deserve a highlight. Geoblocking is the clearest pattern in the table: five of the six plugins sell it as a paid feature, WordSec ships it free, and the setup takes minutes as shown in How to Block a Country in WordPress. And the blackhole trap row has a single yes in it: a honeypot URL that legitimate crawlers never touch, so anything that hits it earns an automatic ban.
What the table tells you
Counting capabilities available at any tier: WordSec covers all ten, Sucuri, Solid Security, and AIOS cover eight, Wordfence seven, and MalCare five. Counting what you get free, the spread widens: WordSec offers nine of ten free, Solid Security and AIOS seven, Wordfence six, MalCare two, and Sucuri one, since its real WAF lives in the paid cloud service.
Tables reward breadth, so a note on depth: Wordfence maintains its own rule feed, and Sucuri's paid cloud WAF filters traffic before it reaches your server. Neither changes the picture above: the capabilities you can actually switch on, and what they cost, are what the table shows. The profiles below cover each product briefly.
Plugin by plugin
WordSec
WordSec's Firewall module runs rule-based inspection with a one-click learning mode, custom multi-condition rules, bot and AI scraper blocking, the blackhole trap, role-based REST API control, security headers, and more than 25 hardening toggles, all free with 50 rules included. The Blocking module adds free geoblocking, rate limiting, and automatic 404/403 abuse bans, with VPN, proxy, and Tor blocking in Premium. Detailed firewall logs and Live Traffic show you every decision the WAF makes.
Wordfence
The most established name in the space. Its endpoint firewall inspects requests in PHP with rules from Wordfence's own threat intelligence team, and the free tier includes the WAF, custom rules, bot blocking, headers, hardening, and rate limiting. Two caveats: free-tier rule and signature updates arrive on a 30-day delay per official documentation, and geoblocking requires Premium. No anonymizer blocking, blackhole, or REST API namespace control at any tier.
Sucuri
Sucuri's model is different: the serious firewall is a cloud WAF, a paid reverse proxy that filters traffic before it reaches your host, which also gives it DDoS absorption capabilities plugin-based WAFs lack. The free plugin provides hardening and integrity checking but not the WAF itself. If you want cloud-level filtering and are happy paying for a platform, Sucuri is an option worth pricing out; if you expect the free plugin to be a firewall, you will be disappointed.
Solid Security
Solid Security (formerly iThemes Security) covers the fundamentals well in its free tier: a firewall with custom rules, bot controls, headers, hardening, rate limiting, and REST API restrictions. Its historical strength is login and lockout management rather than deep request inspection, and geoblocking sits in the paid tier. No anonymizer blocking or blackhole trap.
All-In-One Security (AIOS)
AIOS covers a fair amount in its free tier: firewall rules, bot blocking, headers, hardening, rate limiting, and REST API controls. The ceiling shows quickly at the advanced end: geoblocking is paid, anonymizer blocking and trap mechanisms are not offered, and there is no equivalent of WordSec's detailed firewall logging and live traffic pairing.
MalCare
MalCare's identity is malware scanning and one-click cleanup through its cloud service, with the firewall as a supporting feature: free basic WAF and rate limiting, paid bot protection and hardening, no custom rules. If automated cleanup is your priority MalCare has a case, but as a firewall it is the thinnest option in this table.
How to choose
Three honest recommendations depending on where you stand:
- You want the most firewall per dollar, including zero dollars: WordSec. Nine of the ten capabilities free, the tenth in Premium, and the firewall comes bundled with the scanner, login security, and monitoring modules in the same plugin.
- You want traffic filtered before it touches your server: Sucuri's cloud WAF, budget permitting. Note that you can run cloud-level DNS filtering in front of any plugin WAF too.
- You want the best-known name and accept paying for full-speed updates: Wordfence Premium. Before you commit, read the head-to-head in Wordfence vs WordSec, because most of what that license buys is free in WordSec.
Whichever you pick, configure it properly: an unconfigured firewall is a sticker, not a shield. The walkthrough in How to Set Up a WordPress Firewall (WAF) covers the settings that matter.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free WordPress firewall plugin?
Counting confirmed firewall capabilities available in free tiers, WordSec currently leads with nine of the ten benchmarked features, including geoblocking, which every other plugin in the comparison sells as paid. The interactive comparison page lets you check the full matrix, including scanner and login features.
Do I need a firewall plugin if my host has a firewall?
Yes. Host and network firewalls filter ports and known network attacks; they do not understand WordPress-specific payloads like plugin exploits, login abuse, or REST API enumeration. An application-level WAF closes that layer, and the two complement each other.
Can I run two firewall plugins together?
No. Two WAFs intercept the same requests, duplicate work, and interfere with each other's blocking, and the performance cost doubles for no security gain. Pick one plugin firewall; a cloud WAF in front of it is the only sensible combination.
Is a cloud WAF better than a plugin WAF?
They filter at different points. A cloud WAF stops traffic before your server spends resources on it, which is stronger against floods; a plugin WAF sees the request with full WordPress context, users, roles, and endpoints, which is stronger for application-aware decisions. High-risk sites often run both.
How did you classify the competitor tiers?
From each vendor's official documentation and pricing pages, reviewed in July 2026, with a conservative rule: unconfirmed capabilities were marked as not offered. Vendors change plans, so treat the table as a snapshot and the live comparison as the current source.
See the whole picture, not just the firewall: the full comparison covers scanning, login security, monitoring, and tools across all six plugins, or just install WordSec free and judge the firewall by its logs.